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Study Reveals Companies with Higher Chance of Receiving 8 Times EBITDA Offer

You may have dismissed social media as a marketing channel, but the latest data from The Value Builder System™ shows a clear correlation between the number of followers a business has across all social media channels and the acquisition offers they receive for their company. The analysis of companies using the Value Builder assessment questionnaire shows 25.6% of business owners with 100,000 or more followers received offers of eight or more times their EBITDA, while only 7.9% of owners with less than 1,000 followers received similar offers. While correlation does not necessarily determine causation, the data does suggest the importance of building a solid social media presence for your company.

For example, in 2016 Channing Allen and his brother Courtland founded Indie Hackers, a blog and forum encouraging start-up founders to share their ideas and stories transparently. 

During the early days, the Allen brothers struggled to garner engagement from listeners and readers. To encourage discussions, they created pseudonyms and made social accounts for them. From those accounts, they would post regular responses to new podcasts and articles, emulating the behavior they wanted to see from their audience. The strategy worked as they quickly began generating actual reactions from their followers.

The buzz Indie Hackers was generating among the start-up community caught the attention of Stripe’s CEO, Patrick Collison. Although Indie Hackers was less than a year old and only generating $8,000 in monthly revenue, Collison saw how valuable the platform would become, which led him to offer the Allen brothers a life-changing amount of money for their company.

Strategic acquirers like Stripe often look for leaders or future leaders in an industry, and one way they identify these companies is by examining their social media presence. If you want to attract a premium offer like the Allen brothers did, here are three proven ways to help you grow an engaged social platform for your business:

  1. Get your employees to engage with your content. Instead of creating fake accounts, you can use your employees to like, comment, and share your posts. Having your staff engage on posts can create the same type of excitement the Allen brothers were able to cultivate with Indie Hackers.
  2. Use video. Adding video to your social media strategy is crucial as it allows for more engaging and dynamic content that can capture viewers’ attention and hold it for longer periods of time. The increased engagement can help boost your social media following as users are more likely to share and engage with video content.
  3. Respond to comments in minutes. To inspire discussion on your posts, make it appear as though you are ready to respond in real time to people’s comments. Carve out 30 minutes after you’ve posted content to engage with your followers.

Although some business owners may consider social media an indulgent waste of time, recent data indicates that a robust social media presence can enhance a business’s value. According to The Value Builder System™, there is a clear correlation between the number of followers a business has on all social media platforms and the acquisition offers they receive for their company. By establishing a strong social media presence, you can capture the attention of strategic acquirers, boost customer engagement, and ultimately increase the overall value of your company.

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