One of the most asked questions about Twitter, is how many followers do I need? What sort of reach do I need on Twitter to successfully generate leads?
Well according to a recent study by Hubspot called 2010 State of Inbound Marketing (PDF) that sweet spot is between 100 and 500 followers. Hubspot data showed that companies with 100 to 500 followers generated 146% more monthly leads than those with 21 to 100 followers. Growing a large following of thousands of followers does not appear top generate any additional leads lift.
HubSpot also noted that more and more companies are now successfully using social media to acquire new customers.
It is not a surprise that in the B2B market, that LinkedIn is most effective social media marketing channels while in the B2C market, it is Facebook. What I did find interesting was that 51% of B2B marketers surveyed said that they had acquired a new customer versus Twitter.
I’ve been working in social media for 3 or 4 years now and am always concerned about such questions. In particular, why should there ever be a’golden number’ for followers. Surely it depends on who’s following, what you’re selling (if anything at all) and what you would like followers to do?
The other concern is that follower numbers is in some way indicative of success – it’s not and relying on such simple indicators usually means you’ll be disappointed in the end.
Check us out on twitter – spidersandmilk
cheers
I know that this is an older article but are the numbers still about the same between 100-200 followers is needed for that sweet spot? I am trying to increase my twitter followers. Any thoughts on what is the right amount of followers these days?