It is time to reevaluate how you measure social media success.

Small business owners tend to measure the success of social media programs in terms of followers, likes, and page views.

A recent white paper on Facebook has pointed out that these metrics are often poor indicators of consumer persuasion – the thing that ultimately drives sales.

The authors note that there is a difference between “engagers” and “followers.” A click on your business post says more about an individual’s tendency to click, rather than if you have persuaded that individual to buy your product or service.

Facebook recommends that you start treating it as a traditional media platform rather than a social network. This means that campaigns should be geared toward driving sales and leads rather than boosting the number of likes you have. This is what us marketing folk all “conversion.”

Note that business-driven conversion goals should be the hallmark of any online marketing campaign – more than half of web traffic is fake, Twitter has a massive number of bots, and even Facebook likes are suspect. Your business can protect itself from wasting its money on this web clutter by ignoring arbitrary “engagement metrics” and focusing on convincing real people to buy your product.

Dennis Jansen is Upsize Minnesota’s digital editor. Follow him at @DennisJansen.