We hear a common goal from businesses starting out on social media.

Have as many followers as possible.

It’s a misconstrued belief that the number of followers a profile has is critical to the success and existence of a business on social media.

However, does the number of followers you have really matter?

The truth is, unless the thousands upon thousands of followers you want buy into, push or engage with your content, that number is just that. A number.

As Noah Kagan says, “Likes don’t pay the bills. Sales do.”

When sitting down with an amazing social media expert (us), it’s important to set goals that are not only realistic, but are in the lane that serves your business best.

Now, if your goal is to win a popularity contest with followers in two weeks, that’s a whole different “strategy”.

As you’ve heard, over and over again, all good things take time. Even building a social media following.

Good things come to those who wait.

Social media is a game, and we’ve been training and playing it for years.

Promising rapid growth in social followers is just as sketchy as promising quick SEO rankings. To have your growth and visibility done right, it takes time.

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “Good things take time, as they should. We shouldn’t expect good things to happen overnight. Actually, getting something too easily or too soon can cheapen the outcome.”

Now, we can’t say if John Wooden was predicting the future of social media with his knowledge, but we can for certain tell you the same applies.

Rushing a social following by purchasing followers, spamming networks and buying links is not only in poor taste, it cheapens the brand you’ve worked so hard to establish.

“Black hat” social media.

We’ve mentioned “Black hat” SEO techniques in the past, but there’s such a thing as “Black hat” social media techniques as well. These sheisty processes aim to trick platforms and break a code of conduct legitimate businesses like ours take pride in upholding.

In other words, these techniques try to make your brand look better than it really is. Our job? To grow your following in a way that provides quality over quantity while nourishing your brand’s hard-earned reputation.

Black hat tricks offer zero substance to your following other than a physical number to brag about. Without genuine, quality gains, the number will always be just a number.

So how long should it take to grow a following? Unfortunately, there’s not a definitive answer to that. We wish we could give you a fancy formula, but we can’t. We can only give you our hard work and expertise!

Remember, success looks different for every company. It’s important to understand that social media is primarily for opening doors to new relationships. New relationships turn to into engagement. Engagement results in trust. And trust turns into sales.

On Wednesday, we’ll dive into what exactly is considered black hat social media techniques. We’ll tell you how to spot them and why your business should avoid them.