Before dissecting the title and diving into the details of the subject, it is very important to point out the true facts about social media through asking the following questions.

Is social media social?
Is their role socially bound?
Was social media created from the beginning to be and stay social?
Do people use it socially?
Is one-line socialization healthy?
Did it bring positive outcomes to people’s lives over the last 10 years?

When people resort to social media to promote their products and businesses, they want market exposure which is totally understandable. But when the number of likes, views, counts, comments and followers becomes the metric, the downside effects are countless. People tend to focus on the number of followers more than their products. Success is measured by the hits on the social handles. It is the race to score more hits and declare victory. The victors have more views and likes. Training courses have been set up to teach that and social media gurus are born every day to teach and preach the rules of the game.

Many businesses organize cocktail parties when their social media handles hit 1000 followers or 10k followers. What does that mean? Does it measure the real business impact? Is a company of 500k followers more successful than the one of 40k? Most business owners and marketers fall in the counts’ trap and forget to produce and add real value. Stress levels skyrocket every day in most businesses when they fail to meet the likes target.

Play the game but do not be a pawn on the chessboard. Play the game and understand the rules. Play the game and understand that the metric is designed psychologically to put you in a race has no finish line.