TrackMaven have developed a ‘Social Media Inflation Index’, that takes into account the social media followings of almost 27,000 brands offering key insights into what sort of audience growth they’re experiencing and their relative growth of followers across each major social media platforms. The data highlights Instagram follower growth was for the most part the highest across 2015, as more marketers and PR professionals started to pay attention to the platform, with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter following behind.

This data from the Social Media Inflation Index can help provide some perspective around the results your brand is witnessing, and whether this company is growing at an average, or above average, rate. It also highlights where brands are getting more attention, and where your company could also consider putting some additional or all of its focus.

Social Media Inflation Index 2016 - Joshua P Mathias PR Agencies in Dubai - Content Marketing Agencies in Dubai

Social media audience growth is important as it illustrates that users are driven by the right elements of producing relevant content geared towards it users.

However equally important, is the demographic of that audience, as opposed to the large number itself. Attaining over a million followers is quite useless if you got them by posting off-topic stories and inspirational quotes. It should be on how the audience aligns with your brand’s broader goals that matters. How these audience members can interact with your business, through click-through rates (CTR), conversions or even perhaps subscribes.

Overall, having a strong social media presence needs to be based on defined goals, and if those goals you set are being met, then you most certainly are meeting your targets, irrespective of vanity metrics.

Having said that, audience growth is key and important, however while you’re putting all the effort into boosting followings and followers, it can sometimes be hard to understand how well you’re actually doing or even how your follower growth compares to the wider industry trends.