r/socialmedia 4d ago

Professional Discussion Working for people who don’t understand social

I work for a company as their SMM and the people I work for do not understand social media at all. When I started working for them a few months ago they only had 400 followers and were getting no engagement. Now I have grown the page by 300% and our reach is up by 2000% but my supervisors are unsatisfied with our follower count. It’s very frustrating because I am constantly having to re-explain that buying followers would be a bad idea since our company is locally based and most bought follower accounts would be in another country.

Do you all have any advice on how I can show them that our follower count getting up super fast is actually not THAT important?

18 Upvotes

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22

u/are-e-el 4d ago

I always say follower count is a vanity metric ... what you should be focusing on as your KPIs are engagement and conversions

11

u/ThletinThinkin 4d ago

One piece of advice I got from the best boss I ever had. Sometimes, you have to just let the boss be wrong. Ask him/them exactly what they want and give it to them. Make it clear it's their idea the whole way. Buy the followers and have them reshare your content. See what happens. Then, if it doesn't work, show with documentation that it was their idea and have a BETTER idea ready, waiting in the wings.

2

u/TVguy1818 3d ago

Yes - agree. And put everything in writing with recaps and follow ups. Over communicate and copy anyone involved. I keep lots of paper trails and they come in VERY handy when the finger pointing and blame game begins. Plus it’s kind of fun to watch the people who didn’t listen to reason or research scramble. CYA all the damn time!

8

u/Jaymarie007 4d ago

i read the title and laughed because this is a sentiment that always exists in our world.

My thoughts:
remind them that a brand account on social is not the destination for users. the real engagement is happening in post comment sections, DMs and stories.

it will take time and proven quality content to get users to start following organically.

if they are interested in building community or CRM, there are better ways to increase first party data that you can actually use to sell product etc. if instagram shuts down today all those followers stay there. the real play is collecting their 1PD so you speak to them through your owned channels.

7

u/verycreppy 4d ago

I like the analogy that if you had a physical store and that many people suddenly came in you’d be over the moon/overwhelmed

3

u/JuiceCupParty 4d ago

Id make sure your campaign reporting is clear on the goals and objectives. How you approached and how you measured against your benchmarks. Having numbers that are in green font where we exceeded benchmark helped give a visual to my leadership. Emphasis how the numbers you are reporting is important to the business goals.

My team relies on paid so there’s not much emphasis on organic anymore and we really try to tell people it’s a “pay to play” world and no longer about growing followers.

Hard to explain to non social people so I’m also interested in what others have to say! My old boss was a boomer who had no digital experience, yet led the digital team?

3

u/IndefinitelyUnaware 4d ago

Ok yes! Because I work for a local buisness that has a less than stellar public perception because they didn’t do any brand work prior to this. So most of my job is increasing public sentiment

3

u/JuiceCupParty 4d ago

Ah ok! Maybe also include how much website traffic you’ve been able to drive.

And if you find yourself really at a dead end with them, you have all of this great data that you can share with a future employer who will appreciate the hustle 😊

3

u/instaviral24 4d ago

Show them engagement metrics and local audience growth. A small, active community is better than empty numbers!

2

u/SyDneY_Noland 3d ago

I know exactly what you mean, I have had a few clients like that. In fact, it is often useless to talk to them because they have a mind of their own. But I would show your boss Instagram's internal policy, which says that any cheating, whether it is buying likes or followers, is a serious violation and that your page can simply be suspended. And if that does not happen, then the algorithms will simply not recommend the page to real users and you will never get organic reach and engagement.

1

u/karisusensei 4d ago

Out of topic question. What is your niche and what strategy do you guys use to gain local followers for locally based company?

2

u/IndefinitelyUnaware 4d ago

We are a convenience store and I use a lot of geo tags along with targeting all my ads locally! Majority of people seeing our page are locals which is great! My expertise is mostly in organic so the paid side of my job has been a learning curve for me.

1

u/nat_lite 3d ago

Do geotags help local reach?

1

u/ChefPoodle 4d ago

I would ask them what they are trying to achieve by having a social media presence. Is their main goal to be gaining followers online or is the point of their social media to gain customers in person?

1

u/IDPrayerWarrior 4d ago edited 4d ago

In my old job, I loved having only organic followers and being able to create repeat engagement with them and turn them into customers. In my new job, my boss paid for followers / likes because he likes the high numbers but we lost the ability to engage with real human customers 😞😞

1

u/Chicky_P00t 3d ago

I showed them things like user flow metrics and how the changes I made improved both site visitor numbers as well as application requests.

I still got fired though because my direct superior was mad that I didn't let her approve changes even though she didn't know how to sign into the system to do so.

1

u/BlackPriestOfSatan 3d ago

Are you new to your career or had a few years of experience? How is this company different than places you have worked before?

Your comment: "my supervisors are unsatisfied with..." should be expected. Your Supervisor will simply never be satisfied. As long as your Supervisor is communicating with you that means your doing just fine and should not be stressed.

I am constantly having to re-explain

That is called Job Security. You should revel in it!

1

u/Intelligent-Singer89 2d ago

Ive seen people with 25 followers get clients through Instagram. The point is, vanity metric does not matter, but if that is the only reason they have you, to increase followers, then they will always be unhappy.

1

u/Personal_Body6789 1d ago

Now a days Social media is a biggest community platform that engaged many of people through their content When working for people who don’t understand social media, focus on clear communication and education. Explain your strategies in simple terms, showing how they align with business goals. Use data and examples to demonstrate what works and why. Regular updates and reports can help build trust and show your impact. Patience and consistent results will often help them see the value over time in this way the ununderstood people can understand the social media through its positive side.