Metrics, Measurements, and Manipulations

The numbers don’t lie, but you need to make sure you have the right numbers.

Metrics this. Metrics that. What are all these? Anyway, in simple English, a metric is a measure of something. In marketing terms, metrics help to measure the success of marketing campaigns. Do these look familiar; Impressions, Reach, Click-through-rate, Email opens, Organic traffic, and the likes. These are all marketing metrics.

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk about manipulations. How so?

I see a lot of online businesses that put enticing media on the last post of their WhatsApp status or Snapchat story (here I’m talking about OnlyFans kinda content, or some peculiar illustration of the female anatomy). I’m led to believe that you’re familiar with them, or well you might frown at this because you are them.

The next series of events that follows is more or less like this:

You’re tapping and racing to the last post because you want to see if the image snippet is what you’re thinking. You’re curious. But as you tap along to the beloved last post, you’re bombarded with multiple images of overpriced Balenciaga bags and shoes which you do not give two cents about. You’ve been played. Can you relate?

Lots of blogs and news platforms use a similar tactic—a catchy or maybe misleading headline to capture your attention, then you’re drawn to read some lies, unrelated content, or basic advertising.

This is how influencers on Instagram, Twitter, and the likes deceive clients with their page views and impressions by using cheap clickbait tactics, and many times peculiar illustrations of the female anatomy.

But these are quite counterproductive as they do damage the brand image and credibility. I mean you’re building on a foundation of lies and if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do? I digress 🙃.

Well if such platforms provided reporting on “time spent on each post”, you could estimate how many of your viewers actually take any interest in the other content that precedes your enticing clickbait. In this case, views are a vanity metric.

I mean, if you could get more detailed analytics on status posts, wouldn’t that be something? This might be a feature in the works for WhatsApp Business, who knows? But for now, your status/story views tell you that you lose viewers after every post. Not everyone that clicks to view your first post will keep going to the last post unless you somehow manage to keep them interested in your content from start to finish - hence your funnel conversion rate.

The numbers don’t lie, but you need to make sure you have the right numbers.

Quality trumps quantity here.

And if you made it this far, see you on the other side.