Do Popular Companies Get More Business?
In school, the popular kids always seemed to be the most successful. They were often smart, funny and attractive. Maybe they were outstanding athletes. Maybe they also got good grades. They were adored and envied by everyone, including teachers.
Does the same hold true for businesses? Think of popular businesses, such as Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, even Facebook and Twitter. Each one of these companies is (or in some cases, was) led by a charismatic leader. Therefore, you’d assume that popular companies do get more business.
There’s More to the Story
Popularity in business today is measured in likes, mentions, followers and clicks. These are among the many metrics tracked and logged by search engine optimization specialists. Touted as showing market penetration, each like, mention, follower and click is collated according to age, gender, location and even income level. Big data is the means through which businesses measure their popularity.
In this kind of popularity contest, the goal isn’t necessarily to get more business, but to exceed your competitors’ numbers. It’s no longer a means to an end, but an end to itself. If being popular were the ultimate goal in business, you’d see fewer accountants and more marketers. There would be bigger and bigger discounts to woo fans — because the team with the most fans wins, right?
Comparing Businesses to Sports Teams
In some ways, companies and sports teams are similar:
- Both put an enormous effort into branding and name recognition.
- Both actively engage in winning and keeping fans.
- If successful, both enjoy a solid foundation of diehard fanatics.
- Sports teams, like businesses, need positive media coverage.
- Sports teams have a devoted local following, similar to successful brick-and-mortar businesses.
- The most popular teams, like companies, are considered winners almost no matter what they do, unless and until they make an egregious marketing error.
But in other important ways, the two differ wildly. For example:
- Sports teams can experience a bad year — or even a bad decade — and still be a viable enterprise; businesses can only sustain a certain number of annual losses before they have to throw in the towel.
- Sports fans still attend games, even if it’s to root for the competition.
- Sports teams, unlike businesses, need wins on the field to give their fans something to cheer about.
- A championship trophy can sustain fans for a decade; business must constantly adapt and grow — their fans more commonly ask, “What have you done for me lately?”
- Even though they are businesses, sports franchises don’t measure success in dollars. All other companies don’t measure success in wins.
The Value of Popularity
Businesses spend hundreds to thousands of dollars every month on social media. Some post daily or even hourly. And then there’s the responsibility of responding to comments. It takes time and money to manage an active social media account. Now multiply that by 10, to include all the various social media platforms, and you get an idea of the true cost.
But what’s the true value of those likes, mentions, followers and clicks? Do they actually funnel real people toward sales? The answer is complicated, but it relies less on likes and followers and more on website traffic.
Does Popularity Get More Business for Companies?
Social media generates brand awareness, no doubt, as it gets a business’s name in front of millions of people, if they’re successful. Social media is also a great place to manage a business’s customer experience. In the very public platform of social media, your business can mitigate complaints and foster ambassadors. All of these are positive things.
But most ecommerce takes place on a company’s website. So website traffic and online sales tell the story. To get more business, a company has to urge social media followers and fans to visit their website. Without that connection, being popular is no more relevant than being named Mark.
Tipping the Scales
The final part of the equation to get more business is balancing the cost of all social media engagement to actual sales from all that activity. It’s great if your company can generate $10,000 in gross revenue from social media contacts. But it’s substantially less exciting if you’re paying $8,000 a month to maintain that website presence. It’s still a win in terms of hard numbers, but the ratio isn’t promising.
Of course, it depends where you are in the cycle. If you’re just starting your social media campaign, you may have nowhere to go but up. But if you’ve been at it for a year, that $10,000 in revenue may represent the high-water mark. There are factors to explore, such as reducing the costs while maintaining the revenue stream. Only you, as the business owner, can determine if it’s worth continuing in this case.
Popularity, in general, doesn’t get more business for your company. It is only a sign of brand awareness and brand acceptance. Both of those are positives, but they don’t always translate into more profits. Beware the social media game.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business to succeed. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.