10/12/2019
Follower count is a vanity metric, but it’s one that is easily comparable across channels and competitors. You can quickly see how many followers your competitors have, and measure the size of your audience on Instagram versus Twitter.
But a simple follower count only tells one small and almost meaningless part of the full story. How many of those followers are real? How many are paying attention? How many did you earn (versus pay for)? And you need to measure more than just quantity – how relevant, interested and influential are your followers? How many are current customers? Or better yet, how many are potential customers?
A better way to think about followers is to consider the larger concept of audience. Your audience includes everyone who can or does see your posts. This is hopefully larger than just those people who follow you directly; your audience is anyone who could be reached by your content through amplification and search. You should be measuring the size of your reached audience, as well as your activated audience – the number of people who are interacting with your content.
That leads us to engagement.
