This debate has been going on for years now, which is more important, the number of people that “like” your page or “follow” you or the quality of engagement you have with each of those that do? In the sales world no matter if you were selling widgets, gidgets or gadgets the goal in the past was to get in front of as many people as possible. To the point of having formulas to help figure out how people contacts you had to have to reach a certain sales goal. Example 100 leads, gave you 30 appointments, 30 appoints lead to 20 face to face meetings and depending on your closing rate, 5 to 7 deals. I have always hated that type of system! Those were just numbers, it didn’t take into account the relationship built with each contact. I always wanted to make my contacts with people a value to them. Why just touch 100 people when I could embrace 50, build a better rapport, reach the same sales goal, have a better referral rate and retain that client/customer for a lifetime of spending.
Here at Tangram Media when working with our clients customizing their on-line solutions we ask, What are your company’s Social Media goals? Are you looking to spread your brand recognition, retain existing customers, gain referrals or
generate new leads? More and more companies are finding it’s better to have a smaller number of “Likes” and ”followers” that are more engaged then to have huge numbers of them that just sit there. People buy stuff that their friends are buying so the more you connect with the first customer the better the chances of them “Liking” or “Sharing” your product, brand or Company. And if they do, the better the chances of their friends doing the same. This is why Facebook’s Sponsored Ads work so well. It uses the fact that a person has “liked” or “shared” your content and targets their friends specifically with that activity. Also the new insights feature “Friends of Fans” gives you a broad new outlook on the reach you potentially have if you keep your fans engaged. The new people “are talking about” number gives you great feedback about how many people are liking and sharing your page and content. A number of “are talking about” that is higher then your “likes” means you have hit the jackpot!

Now how do you build those numbers? I would start slowly and build that relationship with each and then over time add more numbers. Start with your advocates, those people that share your love for your service or product. Get them and keep them involved. They are your cheerleaders so ask them to “like” and reply to your comments, “share” your content and add more posts to your page. As they “like” and “share” more and more people will join in, stay engaged with them, make them feel at home. Soon, before you know it you will reach the tipping point and it will explode.
So I guess what I’m getting at is the fact that you have to decide what your goal is and work from there. Knowing that will determine which direction you want to go. Keep in mind that social media is suppose to be social so make it so that when your 2 friends, tell their 2 friends, they tell their 2 friends and so on and so on!!!!!

Screen Shot courtesy of Mari Smith via Facebook

Facebook has introduced “smart lists” that automatically sort friends into categories and prioritise news from those dearest to members of the world’s largest online social network.

The rollout of smart lists commences on Thursday and comes as rival Google+ seeks to win over users by providing sharing in “circles” that mirror real-world social groups such as family, friends, and co-workers.

“This is really something we have been working on for four years,” Facebook director of product management Blake Ross said as he gave AFP a preview of smart lists.

“We think this is the way people will make lists going forward,” he continued.

Facebook began in 2007 letting members individually sort friends into lists for targeted sharing of comments, photos and other digitised snippets of life.

The smart lists feature spares Facebook users the tedium of creating lists by automatically putting friends into groups, with the first four categories being work, school, family and city.

“It is silly for you to spend a Saturday afternoon categorising your friends on Facebook,” Ross said. “We want to make it as easy as possible to organise your friends.”

Smart lists are created and updated based on information people consent to share with friends on Facebook, according to Ross.

“Smart lists take all the pain out of organising friends on Facebook,” Ross said, noting that the feature was optional. “You can always add to or remove people from a smart list after Facebook makes a recommendation.”

Smart lists start out by mining profiles of friends to figure out details such as ages or colleges attended to create lists of likely current or former classmates.

The city category will categorise by designated regions, since friends who live near one another might reside in different towns.

Facebook will also let each member create a list of people who are “closer to them than anyone else in the world,” according to Ross.

News from friends in that list is given high-priority delivery.

People can also get separate Facebook news feeds based on lists.

“I think my friends love me, but I don’t know if they want to hear about my baby every time it takes another step,” Ross said.

“This lets people take slices of life and share them with different audiences,” he continued.

Facebook will also let members list “acquaintances” whose posts they don’t want to see very often.

“Facebook is used by more than 750 million people worldwide, and just like in the real world you are friends with a diverse group of people,” Blake said.

“We heard from users that it is hard to talk to all these people at one time, and maybe harder to hear from them at one time,” he added.

Facebook last month announced other improvements aimed at letting users be more selective about who gets to see what they post at the social network.

The moves follow the successful launch of an online social network by internet titan Google. Google+ social network has won legions of fans by allowing people to share content based on which “circles” friends fall into.

Google is a latecomer to social networking but its new site, Google+, has grown rapidly to more than 10 million members since its launch on June 28 although questions have been raised recently as to how active its users are.

In unveiling Google+, Google stressed the ability it gives users to separate online friends and family into different “Circles,” or networks, and to share information only with members of a particular circle.

One of the criticisms of Facebook has been that updates are shared with all of one’s friends unless a user has gone through a relatively complicated process to create separate Facebook Groups.

While Google+ may be the fastest-growing social network ever, it remains to be seen whether it can pose a serious threat to the social networking titan Facebook.

Google has a billion users worldwide that could be drawn into the California-based internet giant’s social network.