Social Sharers Aren’t Created Equal
Very often, marketers make the mistake of assuming that what works for one company on social media, will work for every other company. They see the success others are having and assume they should see the same if they use the same tactics.
One KPI many use when measuring social success, is social shares (this isn’t a smart metric to gauge success by, but we’ll cover that at a later time). When it comes to social sharing success, marketers must remember that all are not created equal.
Super Sharers
The type of audience you have will greatly shape the social sharing you see. Think of your own Facebook following. We all know that one person (or maybe 20) that shares EVERYTHING single update they see on some annoying topic (lucky for us Facebook has made changes to stop us from seeing things we don’t care as much about as often). While some social marketers may think of these people as their dream follower, they need to remember that the audience these folks are sharing the content with generally doesn’t care about it. The message falls on deaf ears.
This is one type of social sharer we need to be aware of and consider when we look to use social shares to gauge success. Super sharers can knock your numbers off by sharing everything they see, even if they don’t really care about it and their own following doesn’t care at all.
It’s also just one example of why measuring success by social shares is silly. If aunt Suzie shares every post she sees with an inspirational quote but the message is shared with an audience that doesn’t care about inspirational quotes, is it really successful? You should be measuring success in a much different and more accurate way.
Non-Sharers
On the other side of the spectrum from those that share everything that come across their feed are those that never share. Remember that while many use social actively to share their own thoughts, interests, etc, along with the messages and content of others, there are also a large number that simply use it as a news feed but don’t feed back into it. They don’t re-share items, post their own content or even comment on what they see. They simply use it as a means of consumption (and that’s just fine, as there’s no right or wrong way to use social, just personal preference).
People may choose not to share for all kinds of reasons. They may be too busy to do so. They may feel it’s not a rewarding endeavor. They may even be embarrassed to. A great example of those that often don’t share due to embarrassment are many professionals. They often feel that sharing even useful information may make it appear that they weren’t already knowledgeable on the topic, and it could make them appear stupid in the eyes of their coworkers and peers. IT workers are a great example of this. They generally want everyone to believe they know everything about the things they work with and sharing tech pieces they see could make them appear not to be the know-it-all they want others to believe they are. Because of this, we tend to see fewer social shares (and responses) from IT workers.
Figure Out Your Following
Understanding our audiences and how they share is important for all social marketers. Knowing how they use and share on social allows us to adjust our expectations so we’re not over or under expecting and then coming up short. Remember that while we often forget exactly who we’re marketing to, knowing how they consume and share the thing we market to them will lead to far greater success.
