Vanity Metrics: A Dangerous Distraction from True Business Growth

know that you need it, then you're in the right place. Welcome to Cash In On Camera. I'm Sheryl Plouffe, and we have Lauren Litt with us today from Lil Shameless Plug, and she's here to talk about social media but from a very different perspective. This is about vanity metrics. Woo! Vanity metrics, a dangerous distraction to true business growth. So Lauren, let's start the conversation there. Like, what vanity metrics? Some people in marketing have heard this term. It's being thrown around quite a bit. Yeah. Explain to us what we mean by vanity metrics before we start into this.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're all familiar with the term being vain, right? It's when you're very focused on yourself. You know, we— the thing that happens with vanity metrics, what we're referring to when we're talking about this are those outward-facing signs that look like success but aren't really success. And what we mean by that is how many maybe followers somebody has, how many likes a single post is getting. Um, maybe it's the reach, you know, if you're like looking at people's stuff and you're just seeing reach on things, those are outward-facing metrics that really aren't telling you the whole story of someone's business. They're not showing you that engagement rate. You don't know how many people are having conversations with them in the DMs. If you're just looking at those vanity metrics, you have no idea how many people are actually clicking and buying. Out of those 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 followers. So people when, and I also think the problem with vanity metrics is it creates a bar to entry for people who are just starting out in business. If you've got your scrappy little $100,000 business and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't have 100,000 followers, I can't be on social media. That is not a true story at all because you don't need 100,000 followers.

Okay, let's dig into that because that is, I think, one of the key things. There is this belief out there that I have to have a big brand. I have to have a big following. I can't do the things or have the kind of business that I aspire to have, which could be in the multiple six figures, if I don't have a million people following me on Instagram. Tell me about your thoughts on that.

I— okay, we just have to do one thing. Everybody just go to my Instagram profile @lauren.litt, L-I-T-T. I have around 600 followers and I have a multiple six-figure business. Okay? You do not need tens of thousands of followers. And I actually specifically coach around this because I help those people like you started who don't like social media. There's a, there's a bar to entry for some of us, which may have to do with your being more sensitive. It may have to do with the fact that maybe you're neurodivergent. And so the dopamine hits affect you in a different way. Um, but you don't need all of those followers. What you need is a highly engaged group of your perfect audience that you're speaking to continually and that you're able to then sell to when you're ready for to do that. And if you want a business somewhere between $100,000 and $350,000, like let's go for 1,000 followers. You all, let's just focus on where you are now and grow that little audience.

I'm in the same position as you, just using Instagram as an example. I have less than, just under 5,000 followers there. And same thing, multiple six-figure business, right? So it doesn't mean that you have to have a million followers, but yet we're kind of lured into this belief that if I'm going to be an influencer, which is a word that's often thrown around, but that business model is very different than the business model that a lot of coaches and consultants and experts and speakers and authors want to have and aspire to have. Based on their knowledge, on the knowledge industry, meaning they're creating programs and products and services that are knowledge-based, right? There's teaching education, they're teaching transformation, taking people through those processes. That's a very different business model than being an influencer in the traditional sense and charging people to, you know, to an advertiser to post and be posed with, like, again, my Weather Network mug. Yes. Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Yeah. So let's just talk a little bit about that because this is sometimes a differentiator that people are not clear about, that business model.

Yeah. So the, when you're hearing advice about those different levels and, and one of the things I also want you to understand is that the more followers you get, the lower your engagement rate will be. So we, if we have our scrappy little audience of 600 in my case, or, you know, under 5,000 in yours, your engagement rate is much higher than an audience that has 100,000, 1 million followers. And so one, that's bonus, right? But two, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought because I was so excited about that.

I know where you were going with that because you're saying that if you have a, like you put it, a scrappy little audience, right? But you don't, if you have programs, let's say you have a program that's like a $3,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 program, How many of those do you need to sell in order to make the revenue goal that you have set for yourself, which could be to your point, maybe it's a $350,000. Like the numbers are not gargantuan.

Mm-mm. No. And you don't, so when we're looking at those smaller audiences, right, we typically see somewhere between 1 to 3% off, off carry on those social media platforms, right? So we both just brought up Instagram. Instagram, you're going to see somewhere between 1 to 3% of your Instagram audience be ready to buy. From you if you're nurturing them in a consistent way. And so yeah, let's talk about that business that has that $3,000 offering. I don't know about you, but in this next quarter, I'm looking to serve 4 more people. I can't serve 100 people in this next quarter. Therefore, I don't even want that giant audience, right? That's an audience that's too big for me. My business couldn't nurture that. That's not the kind of business I'm building. So you really need to look at what is your business, what is your offering, and really focus on those pieces. And then also the other thing is, you know, focus on the pieces of content that are doing what you need to have done in your business. Meaning, I love picking on Instagram for this because everybody always says like, oh my gosh, the only thing you can do right now is Reels. Like if you were doing anything else, Drop it. You need to do 5 Reels a day. That's the only thing that's working on Instagram. Yes, with a giant caveat. This is— Reels work to build audience. And what don't we really need as small businesses? Huge audiences. What we need are engaged audiences. And so if you are just putting out Reels and you're not putting out a carousel that maybe dives deeper into your specific knowledge base, if you're not in your stories continuously connecting with people in a human way, if you're not sharing your face in a photo occasionally so that people can click through to your offer, you're not using this tool the way you need to use it, right? So really focusing on, let's take away those vanity metrics and focus on what are the things that you need to do in your business today and how can we match the actions of the profile you're on to create those clicks or, you know, DMs that you need.

And digging a little deeper into what you just said, really is this idea that you have to have or understand what your strategy is. And this is what's often missing, is that people don't have one. They're just following the lead of other people. They're like, well, that person is somebody that I aspire to be like or want to have what they have. Therefore, I'll do the things that I see them doing on the surface. What they're not seeing is all the backend stuff because you're not privy to seeing what's going on in the backend and what the strategy was for developing that thing that works for them, that works for their business model. So you as a business owner have to have a clear understanding of what your business is. And I can tell you from experience that a lot of people don't know. A lot of people don't know what their business is or what their model really is.

When people come to me, it's one of two things. They are either never selling in their social and on their marketing, or they're selling too much and they don't know. So, this idea of stepping into your marketing program and just like going for it without having a clear plan of what you're building towards or the audience that you're trying to reach and engage, it can be dangerous because you can either be sitting there generously giving and giving, giving forever. And you're like, you have this beautiful primed audience who's ready to take that next step with you, but you just keep giving them free recipe tips. Let's take them to that next level because you're actually doing your audience a disservice. There's a woman I worked with a while ago who helps people fix their gut issues. And she really had an issue selling because she was like, "Well, I just don't want to turn people away. I don't want to turn people off." And you're like, "Hold up. You're about to radically change someone's health, get them back into their body feeling better, potentially heal some of these ongoing chronic issues that they have." And you don't want to do that? Like, let's really give ourselves that check because if you have a small business, it's because you believe in what you're selling. And if you believe in what you're selling and that it can change the world in some better way, you gotta offer that to people.

I love what you, I love how you framed that in that it is a disservice to the people who you could otherwise help if you're not willing to go up there and actually put out that call to action. That CTA needs to be put out there. In the right balance, mind you, right? You don't want every single one of your posts to be, look at me, promotion, promotion, promotion. You want to have the right balance of what that looks like, but you need to be doing it.

Yes. So there's, there's two rules of marketing which we can apply specifically to social media. The first you probably have heard, it's called the rule of 7. At this point, it's really more like the rule of 10 to 12. And this rule states someone needs to to see you about 7 times before they're able to know, like, and trust you so they can buy from you. So that builds into this idea that we need to consistently put content out on social media. The other rule is that you— I like to call it the 80/20. We want to give 80% of the time and then take 20% of the time. So your marketing message, if we're putting out 10 you know, posts in a month, 2 of them should be direct calls to you, to what you're selling. And the other 8 should be gives, should be shares with your audience. You know, maybe if we're going back to the Gut Nurse, you know, like how can she help her audience and educate them and then sell 20% of the time?

Yeah, I agree. I love the 80/20 rule in a variety of different things that relate to marketing, but specifically this. So with regard to the, let's say, the, the scrappy little audience that, as you put it, right? It's like, and it really harkens back to that, that article that was written back in, I think, the 1990s, and it was about, um, you know, your, um, 1,000 true fans, I think it was called.

Okay, cool.

And they've rewritten and then they've updated it for today, but it's a great article that really talks about the power of 1,000 true fans, meaning super fans, right? And so if someone is watching Cash In On Camera today, they're listening to the podcast and they're saying, okay, but I'm at a point where I don't even have 1,000. Like, I don't even have 1,000 true fans or don't have that audience. Like, what is your advice to help them build up to that point?

Yes. So consistency is key. You know, right now we are a very savvy audience out there. And the algorithms are actually, I like to think of them as these incredible hosts of the party. Okay? So your job is to show up consistently as a great party guest. You know, you're offering value to the platform that you're on. And then when the host is like, oh my gosh, Lauren is the best party guest. I love having her at my dinner table. I can throw her right in the middle and all these people will come to her. That's when you'll start see your audience start to grow because the algorithm will understand, I can shove Lauren in on these days at these times. And then the audience relies on that to like come to you. So if we can start with consistency and if that means once a week, fantastic for the next 3 months, just post once a week. You will grow that muscle. You know, you will get better at posting and better at creating content for your audience. And I bet you, In that time, if you're at zero right now, you can probably have 100 followers in 3 months. You know, you can probably have 250 in 6 months. Next year, you will have your 1,000 if you keep consistent at that one post a week. So social media is not an overnight game. Y'all, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And I bet most of you are looking to be in business for more than 3 months. So this is totally great for you to start right now.

This is one of the things I say about speaking too. It's like, integrate this into your marketing plan, right? The idea of consistency. And then as another tip to that would be when you can really start to dial in all the different elements of your marketing plan and leverage them to each other, then things really start to work on all cylinders. So Lauren, I want to ask you, what is a tip, a tool, a tactic or technique that's really helping you to market yourself, maybe personally, or to market, a little shameless plug, what is something that you're finding that's really working for you in marketing today?

The thing that works best for me is to show up and actually engage with my audience. And this is why when I'm teaching about social media, 50% is that content you're putting out, 50% is how much you're actually engaging with your audience and with the content that you're putting out. So I am my own worst client. I'm not very frequent on social media, we'll say. But y'all, I am every single day commenting on other people's posts. I am engaging with people in my DMs. I am liking those people who I'm looking to connect with over a long time. So even though you don't see me all the time, like putting out content, I have a very, very healthy engagement and off rate into my classes and programs when I'm ready for them because I'm a human. I like to say, like, don't forget to be a human because there's other humans out there online.

So That's great advice. I love that. And if people want to learn more about your business and the work that you do as the lead social media manager and owner of Lil Shameless Plug, where do they go?

Well, you can go Lil Shameless Plug, but the best place to reach me is on Instagram @lauren.litt. That's Lauren Litt. And I would love for you all to go ahead and download my free video series about how to get real engagement in as little as 5 minutes a day. And you can actually see your engagement rate grow exponentially in 1 month if you just spend this 5 minutes a day on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. This video series shows you exactly how to step through these things that I said, I just said I do every day in order to have a really healthy and engaged audience.

That's amazing. Thank you so much, Lauren, for coming on the show today and sharing with us really the definition of vanity metrics. But further to that, how we can avoid getting caught in the trap of vanity metrics to the detriment of the growth of our businesses, right? Absolutely. You don't need to have a million followers. You need to have the right followers, and that can be a small group as we've described today. So I think that's really helpful for people who are struggling right now with social media and they're on that hamster wheel and they're just trying to figure out how is this all supposed to work. You've given some really great insights on how to do that.

Great. Well, and I, I look forward to seeing everybody out there.

Thanks so much, Lauren.