You've may have heard this many times and probably even used the "Quality Trumps Quantity" argument when justifying your less-than-stellar social media results to your management. As much as I believe in the quality argument, the reality is numbers do matter and here's why.
Let's take a very familiar example like dating. The more people you meet, the more likely you are to meet "the right one". However, the argument can be made, it's the quality of single people you meet that's really important and not the number of "eligibles".
Agreed. However, the assumption (and the hope) is that the few people that you do meet are of super-quality, thereby improving your odds of happily-ever-after, without any need to meet additional folks.
Let's take the same example in the business context, you can improve your odds of success by reaching as many people as you can within your budget constraints (quantity) or reaching a highly targeted group of customers (quality). In the social media space, how confident are you of hitting that sweet spot?
Another underlying assumption for "quality over quantity" argument is that both are mutually exclusive, that more numbers mean lower quantity or vice versa. Can you really say that the fewer leads that you did capture were of better quality than the leads from a campaign that generated higher volume of leads?
Generalizations can be misleading and we have to account for differences in industry, business model, type of product/service, goals, as well as target audience. Whether reaching 100 influencers is better than reaching 10,000 customers will depend on your industry and business objective.
So going back to your original argument to your management that it's really the quality that matters not the quantity, make sure you're ready to back it up by showing that your conversion or engagement rates were indeed higher than if you had 10x the reach. If you can't demonstrate that your business goals were indeed met by reaching a smaller audience, it's a hollow argument and sooner or later, your business results will reflect that.
In my follow up post next week, I will discuss some simple ways to define your social media goals and how to measure what really matters. Have a great weekend!