15k Followers and Nothing to Show for It

In case you didn’t notice, it was cold over the holidays.

Though we didn’t get hit quite as hard as some other parts of the states, it dropped all the way to 0, with a cutting -25 wind chill.

This is going to get more interesting.

With the drop in temp, the furnaces in my 92-year-old house went into overdrive to keep us nice and toasty, and you know what? They did a good job. Thanks, furnace.

There was, however, one problem with running the heat all dat that slipped my mind. Humidity. Having the furnace on full blast sucked every last drop of moisture out of the air and created an undeniable positive correlation between the temperature outside and how desert-like my sinus cavity was first thing in the morning.

So I did what I do best and went to Wirecutter to figure out what humidifier was the best. I’m in a ‘buy things that last’ phase right now, so naturally, I skipped past the budget recommendation for the slightly more expensive but much nicer looking model. One click on Amazon later, my humidity problem was solved. Or at least it would be in… 3 WEEKS.

Frustrated by the state of shipping these days, I closed the Amazon app and completely forgot about the humidifier. My initial humidity problem quickly followed suit.

Today, as a complete surprise, the UPS guy hopped up my front steps and left a big brown box on my porch.

“I don’t remember ordering anything.” I thought.

I pulled the box inside to safeguard it from the porch pirates that are apparently plaguing Mark Rober and cut into the top. Inside was a slightly-more-expensive-because-it-looked-better humidifier. Ah. Forgot about you.

Of course, now that the weather has warmed up, I found myself suddenly in possession of a solution to a problem I don’t have.

Out of curiosity, I popped open the box to make sure I wasn’t being catfished by some third-party Amazon seller (I wasn’t) and was completely stopped in my tracks.

Upon opening the box, I was met with a slew of marketing messages asking for my follow on what felt like every single social media platform. Keep in mind that this isn’t some lifestyle brand (even if it says ‘lifestyle’ in their IG handle). They make humidifiers. Air purifiers. Boring house stuff that is not, and likely will never be, exciting.

Curious, I popped open Instagram on my phone and checked out their account.

15.8k followers

What?

A quick check on social blade shows they have a measly 0.15%engagement rate. 21 average likes per post. That makes more sense.

Clearly, they are spending a lot of money on their channel, and from what I can tell are producing the majority of their content in-house.

This brings me to the primary point of this long rambling blog post about the weather. Something I face with clients all the time.

Every brand doesn’t need organic content on every social platform. In fact, many brands don’t need organic content on any social platforms. That isn’t to say that social isn’t a potent marketing tool or that sponsored content and ads for those brands might not work incredibly well, but the investment in producing organic content MUST make sense as a business decision. Long-term or short, there must be a game plan where those marketing dollars are being turned into business growth.

So look at Levoit, the humidifier folks. Nice photography. Decent posting cadence. They obviously have someone actively working on this as their full-time job. Maybe a few people. How many products would they need to sell from leads generated by their Instagram to make the staff worth it? A lot. And at a 0.15% engagement rate, it doesn’t seem likely.

I’m not just here to trash on the social channel for my new humidifier, but to hopefully share a reminder to stop and think if a social channel has the potential for real ROI for your brand before you dive in. If you’re answering no to these questions, spend your ad dollars elsewhere. I promise you’ll grow faster.

Ask yourself:

“Are we providing real value to followers?”

“Are we sharing content that is more than just advertising the product?”

“Are we generating real leads and sales from this platform?”

“Do we have the potential to?”

“Can the sales from this platform realistically pay for the time and investment to make the content?”

“Is following your brand helping to solve a real problem for your customers?”

“If you could only pick two marketing channels to focus on, would this be one?”

If you‘re reading this and are one of the 15 thousand people who follow @levoitlifestyle on Instagram, please DM me. I need to know why. If you are having trouble deciding if your social is worth the investment, give me a call.

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