Vanity Metrics… does the number of likes really matter?
In the video above I talk to you about your numbers on Instagram and other social media platforms. And by numbers I mean your likes, comments, and your follower count, and how to increase those numbers with value!
My name is Dr. Yazdan and I’m a cosmetic dentist in Newport Beach, CA. I’ve grown my social media platforms in a way that feeds my business with new patients each and every month, and no wI also teach healthcare professionals how they can do the same! Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you never miss a video!
Getting more business doesn’t mean getting more followers. You have to look past the vanity metrics on social media. If you’re one of my Grow With The Gram insiders, you already know that because I drill this into you! So if you’re looking at your following thinking that you have a small number of followers, and you’re thinking that you will never grow your social media and it will never work for you, you’re wrong! Don’t let the barrier of what you think is a low follower count effect you. You can have 5 million followers on Instagram but if none of them care about what you have to say, your business won’t grow. But if you have 500 followers and all 500 of them can’t get enough of what you’re posting, your business will succeed! You need to focus on turning the followers you already have into patients.
So here’s what I want you to do now. Look at your follower count. Let’s look at Instagram for a minute and forget the other platforms. Let’s say you have 200 people following you. Most people would think that’s a pretty low number. Now I want you to imagine inviting all 200 of those people over to your house for dinner. All of a sudden 200 people seems like a lot, right?
Basically what I’m trying to tell you is that the vanity metrics don’t matter. In fact, if that doesn’t convince you, let me tell you a story. Once I posted a photo of a few different toothpastes, and wrote a little blurb about each one in the caption. That photo of mine had the lowest amount of likes and comments compared to all my other photos that I had posted within the past 6 months. When I was auditing my account with my team, I was told by someone on my team to delete the photo so that my engagement would look higher. But I argued that it was valuable content, and for me, it didn’t matter how many likes I had. I cared more about giving value and I chose not to delete the photo.
Three days later, I was contacted by a producer from the Doctors TV show and she said she had seen my post on the toothpaste, and she wanted to bring me on the show to talk about it.
Now… had I deleted that photo, and had I been so consumed with the vanity metrics of the post, I could almost guarantee that this opportunity would not have come along. And what a shame that would have been. So you see my friends, you should worry more about giving valuable content than about how many likes you are getting. Now I know I said numbers don’t matter… and they don’t… but you should focus on obtaining the right type of numbers. The type of numbers that do make a difference. So I’m going to teach you how to grow your numbers… your likes, your comments, your followers in the right type of way.
Focus on turning the followers you currently have into patients. Go deep with them. Who follows you? Why are they following you? Understand who they are and their pressure points. Respond to your comments and direct messages. Make your tribe feel heard and seen, and look past those vanity metrics. If you’re thinking, “I would talk, I would respond to comments, but nobody is talking to me and nobody is sending me any messages” then my question to you is how many comments have you left on other people’s accounts today? How many messages have you sent to other people? Because you need to go first before others will start talking to you.
Once we understand our people, we know how to talk to them. Then we know how to help them, and we can change their lives. If you’re using Instagram like it’s a box your checking off a list, and you’re saying to me I’m doing it, but it’s not working… then I want you to answer the following 3 questions.
- do you understand them in a deep and intimate way?
- Are you talking to them in a way that they understand even if they aren’t talking to you?
- Do you have a clearly defined way of helping them?
When you make your followers feel known, seen, and heard, then you become the only option for them. There are so many people that do exactly what we do, even in the same city, maybe even on the same street. But how do they choose us? How do we stick out? We do this when we understand them differently, when we talk to them differently, and when we help them different.
So Instead of you focusing on actually growing your amount of followers, and getting more likes, I want you to focus more on giving back to your community. The people that are already following you and the people that are already there. Learn about them, give them what they want. This is how you will make your social media platforms successful for your business. Even if if you have what you think is a small following.
To help you, I’ve created a daily checklist for your social media engagement that you can put into action right away. The best part is that it will only take you 15 minutes a day, but it will help you grow so much more! Make sure to download it below and start taking action right away!
About Dr. Yazdan
