Proof of Life on Social Media: Why You Need It

Proof-of-life isn’t really optional anymore. That’s right, you heard it here first: your business does need social media presence. To stay competitive long-term, you need a great one.  

Even companies who may be in industries with low success rates on social media can still benefit from an online presence. Proof of life is a term marketers use to describe digital activity which can show consumers/your target audience that you are not only a real company, but a company that is active. Proof of life could include smaller campaigns such as posting only one time each week, or posting multiple times a day in a larger campaign. Real-time proof of life includes items such as responding to DMs or other messages across platforms in a timely manner, responding to comments and answering questions, or live streaming tutorials, events, or other relevant timely content. Some brands may opt to reshare user generated content, which is another option for a small-scale proof of life strategy. 

The tricky part of social media marketing is that it may not always be easy to attribute sales to a specific campaign. Without a specialized discount code to enter or a special link to a landing page only used on social media, there are limitations to attributing leads/conversion. 

At Colorado Marketing Consultants, we often have businesses coming to us with one primary question: what results can we expect from your campaign?

What results can I expect? 

While many agencies promise massive growth (in some cases, agencies utilize paid followers, which will increase your following at a low cost but is detrimental to real growth and audience trust), without engaging in paid media opportunities on social media, they can’t provide true estimates. The reality is that the question should not be focusing on overall growth, but the quality of that growth. This is to say that while growth should be happening, receiving 20 new quality followers each month is better than one thousand followers who don’t know, understand or care about your product or service. The idea with social media is to build a true community around your brand, allowing your accounts to be a playground for past, current, and potential future leads. On these accounts, individuals can voice complaints or what they wish was different, what they loved, their positive experiences with your service or product, and more. Of course, an account that stays stagnant in engagement despite the addition of a marketing agency and fresh, regular content, would not be acceptable. 

Okay, so rapid (and reckless) growth isn’t the goal… what is? 

Let’s break it down: your focus should be on developing a high-quality and highly engaged digital community around your brand, which involves high-engagement followers as opposed to collecting any followers you can. 

Engagement should be the primary metric your agency is looking at. If the engagement is there, the growth will come. Because your current followers are in your target audience and engaged, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn will be able to promote your account to similar audiences. With a decentralized follower base, you really will not reap the benefits of this free exposure. 

By focusing on engagement, your marketing team or the agency you outsourced to will need to focus closely on developing highly relevant content that adds value to your audience. If the focus is on followers, tactics may shift from incredible content that provides real-world applications for your audience, to simply running offers to an audience that may follow but will not buy, pumping content out in general (especially poorly-made reels or similar short-form video content), or neglecting to respond to comments or messages. 

Don’t followers give you credibility? 

A high number of followers certainly creates a sense of credibility to businesses. For example, a fake business likely won’t have thousands of followers (although you’d be surprised).

What does not create credibility is a high follower count with low engagement. GenA, GenZ, and Millennials will spot accounts with fake followers from a mile away. If you have 10k followers are are receiving 20 likes on average, this loses your business credibility. It looks as if followers have been purchased, which is a shady business practice. If a company is willing to engage in practices that are less than above-board, the public perception may be that they will in other areas, too. 

Even if you employ one of the growth strategies above to hit a follower goal without caring about the quality of followers, you can find yourself in this situation. Even if you didn’t purchase followers, it can still appear that you did. 

A great example of this is the follow/unfollow strategy. Some less-seasoned agencies or marketing specialists utilize a tactic where you follow the followers of other related accounts. For example, if you sell camping gear, you might begin following those who are following REI, or RTIC. Because you “know” that those followers are generally interested in campaign gear or outdoor sports at the very least, it would seem smart to put your brand in front of your audience by following them directly. 

While this strategy might seem fool-proof, it often results in spam accounts primarily following you back. Spam accounts do not engage. As your follower count rises and your engagement rate lessens, social platforms will promote your content less to others. Content that is getting engagement from followers will also be then promoted to others. It can also result in followers who aren’t interested in your product. With the outdoor camping example, following REIs followers to grow your own following might really land you with people who purchased something long ago and is not interested in campaign anymore, people who just like outdoor imagery and follow you for reasons like that, people who accidentally follow REI or don’t remember following them in the first place, or people who no longer engage in that hobby. 

Finally, followers don’t give you credibility when you have followed 12k accounts and only have gained a total of 1k followers. This discrepancy is a clear indicator to your target audience that you are employing this tactic. 

Ok, so engagement is the goal… How does this impact my bottom line?

Yes, engagement is the goal! Social media campaigns with a focus on engagement can help you connect with your audience. It can also help you reach a new audience. It can make your business’s supporters feel heard, with the ability to DM or tag you in posts. 

The real benefit? When a new potential customer or client is looking you up, your social media presence (or lack thereof) will be one of the first things they see. The great engagement rate and proof of life will help to set their belief that your business is legitimate and active, and they can look at how positively the other community members speak about their experiences. This is the real benefit of social media marketing. 

Once this engagement is built, true campaigns can be built to generate sales. Without an engaged audience, however, promoting new products will feel like shouting into the void. 

Many owners see greater success when adjusting their metrics for success to metrics that better represent quality than follower count. When you are looking at agencies or individuals to provide you social media marketing services,  be sure to ask what they track, how they track it, and what they believe success would look like. This can help you understand where priorities lay, and if they are a good fit for your business.