Why Facebook Reach and Fan Counts Don’t Matter
Forrester recently published research proving (yet again) that people overwhelmingly trust what their friends say about a brand. And they rarely trust what brands say about themselves.
If we apply this to Facebook, it means that your community talking about you is much more powerful than you talking about yourself.
This is why People Talking About This is the ultimate metric on Facebook.
But don’t take my word for it.
- Ask any marketer to choose between People Talking About This and the number of fans they have.
- Ask any marketer to choose between People Talking About This and the number of people they reach.
Any honest Facebook marketer will admit that they fantasize about millions of people sharing their content. And while they might brag about reach to their boss, they certainly don’t fantasize about it.
Why do marketers brag about reach?
If brands ultimately care about people talking about them on Facebook, why is there such an emphasis on increasing reach and fans? Especially because increasing reach and fans doesn’t lead to an increase in virality.
Maybe overvaluing reach and fan quantity is a carryover from pre-social marketing practices (impressions, eyeballs).
Or maybe it’s just hard to accept that getting people to like, comment on, and share your content often feels impossible.
Whatever the reason, valuing reach and fan growth over PTAT is like valuing:
- Delivered emails more than click-throughs.
- Landing page views more than conversions.
- Handshakes are more than new sponsors.
Reach and Pages likes are both means to an end
Don’t get me wrong, reach and Page likes are important. But they are both means to an end. And People Talking About This is the ultimate end on Facebook. Just like the ultimate end on your website is conversions.
To use a baseball analogy:
The Red Sox focus on runs as their ultimate end. The means to that end include having the right number of players (page likes) and a nicely mowed field (reach).
Why is valuing PTAT above all other Facebook metrics important?
Imagine the shift in your Facebook results when people stop asking:
- “How can we increase our reach on Facebook?”
- “How can we get more Page likes?”
And start asking: “How can we get more people to share our Page updates with their friends?”
