One or One Hundred

Today on twitter, @cheeky_geeky asked the following question:

“What’s better, one @jowyang or 100 average engagers?” is a serious question, because the government is thinking about this now too #gov20

My response? 100 average engagers. That’s right, I’m going for quantity in this scenario.

Here’s why:

  1. I’m going on the assumption that 100 average engagers like my brand. They are qualified customers. These engagers have eat at my restaurant, stay at my hotel, wear my product or are familiar with government policies. Aka they like and understand my brand. They want others to like and understand my brand. Granted, since they’re “average” maybe they only update once a day vs. @jowyang’s multiple posts. But, I’m okay with that. One hundred diverse engagers are going to reach more people than one @jowyang. And, diverse is the key word. These 100 engagers need to be different. They need to frequent different circles. If all 100 engagers are Social Media Experts, then that does me no good. They will only serve to reach the same people over and over again.
  2. If you’re a mainstream brand, your customer pool is large and diverse. One person, no matter how large their network or how strong their influence is, is not going to reach enough of my customer base to make an impact. And yes, I do see the value in each individual interaction.
  3. Not everyone is on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace or reading blogs. I want to engage my audience on more than one medium. Very few people are active in more than 1-2 spaces. With 100 engagers, I can more effectively reach more people on more mediums. A great example? Today, I sat in a meeting with fifty people. ONE, yes ONE, out of those fifty people knew vaguely what Twitter was. ZERO of the fifty people (myself excluded) actually used Twitter or had ever visited the site. In this scenario, @jowyang would have reached ZERO people in my customer pool.

Personally, I’m all about quality over quantity. But as a major brand with a diverse customer base working to get the word out? Give me average quantity any day.

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