Social media followers: Is quality really more important than quantity?

Say you’re working on a social media campaign for a client. You do an awesome job. You recruit thousands of new fans and followers. You get tons of conversation and engagement going on your client’s social accounts. And then you report back to your client and they’re less than impressed.

So what if we have 1,000 new followers? They say. How do we know these fans are qualified? What if they never even buy from us? So what?

Touché, client. That’s a very valid point.

Working at a PR agency where many of our clients utilize social media, my colleagues and I have often had the discussion about quality vs. quantity when it comes to social media followers. Everyone wants to have a large following, yet everyone is quick to criticize the quality of that large following.

The inbound marketing and social media experts over at Hubspot believe that bigger is better when it comes to your social media following, and just because a fan may never buy from you doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable.

Here’s why:

• More followers mean access to more followers’ followers: This is the basis principle behind the importance of reach in social media. Each follower has a follower and when they like or share your content, their follower’s see it and so on and so on.
• Influencers have, well, influence: If you have a large social media following, chances are there will be one or two influencers in the group. If you can get them to share or comment on your content you’ve just earned major social media cred.
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Tags: inbound marketing, PR agency, social media, social media campaign

Redefining public relations

How the role of public relations has changed

Public relations professionals are known for their communication skills. However, when asked to communicate what it is a public relations professional actually does, many (including myself) come up short. How do you succinctly describe a job that encompasses everything from media relations to social media to collateral material creation to event planning to marketing? Even the textbook definition of public relations leaves something to be desired:

Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.

This has been the formal definition since 1982. But how can we expect anything from 1982 be relevant in today’s ever-changing communication world? Needless to say, the Public Relation Society of America’s (PRSA) campaign to redefine PR is long overdue.

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Tags: inbound marketing, PR, PR agency, public relations, social media, Video Production

What is Inbound Marketing, You Ask?

If Inbound Marketing Was Easy….

If inbound marketing was easy, everyone would do it. For years, businesses have clung to the outbound marketing concept – cold calls, advertising, billboards, direct mail. You know what I’m talking about, you’re doing it today in your business and have been for years. But do you balance that work with inbound marketing? If you’re not familiar with the term, “inbound marketing,” I ask you this – are you familiar with search? With google? Do you know why some businesses rank higher in organic search than others? If you are, then inbound marketing will come easy to you. If not, hang tight, we’re going for a quick and fast ride!

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Tags: Facebook, inbound marketing, Linkedin, Minneapolis PR agency, YouTube