What is a follower, anyway?

How Social Media Screwed Creatives

Social media is strange, don't you think? I once started a business page on Facebook, because they convinced us that having a 'page' would be crucial.

And it was - I was able to write and share things to an audience of people who'd opted in to seeing what I had to offer.

I had over a thousand followers but, before long I noticed my posts were only getting 15-20 views.

Why?

Because Facebook decided to charge money, meaning you had to 'boost' a post to reach your own audience.

Think about that - you build an audience of people who want to see what you produce, but then you are charged to reach those very people.

Seems insane but then, Facebook is free to use. Why should I feel entitled to anything from them? I just have to accept that, while I did build a following, I didn't own it, Facebook did.

Then there was Twitter, or, as it's now known, 'that place I haven't logged into for months.'

Twitter was another place where I built an audience.

And then, same thing happened. Nowadays you share something and only 7 or 8 see it. Huh?

Why would you want to build an audience there with thousands of followers, when it's impossible to reach them?

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Of course, they want you to pay for the blue tick, on a monthly subscription, then you can access your own audience.

Anyway, Twitter is old news to everyone except the guy who owns it.

TikTok has changed the game. And the way they do it is pretty incredible - there's a lot I like about it. But still, you don't have access to your own audience.

It doesn't matter if I have 100,000 followers and you have 12. That's not what's going to make a video go viral.

On Tik Tok, when you post something new, the platform will share it with a handful of around 200 people. How those people interact with your video will determine the success of it. The more people watch /comment/share, the more TikTok will put eyes on it.

TikTok is the closest thing we have to that idea of 'make something, send it to 10 people, and if it's worthwhile those people will share it.’ It's kind of genius but then, it makes the fact you've built a big audience on TikTok mostly irrelevant. You may have 2 million people following you but your next video may reach only 200 people.

Side note: I really like how TikTok works, it's very democratic. If a video hooks people, it spreads. If it bores them, it dies.

That being said, people follow you because they like what you create. But the way the algorithm works, most people who follow you will NOT see what you post.

When it comes to social media, you've never had genuine access to your own audience. Maybe you did at first, but then the sites would create barriers between you and your people.

Photographers on Instagram know this. What started out as the perfect app for photographers, then tried to turn itself into TikTok just to stay competitive. Your work needs a ‘hook’ to keep people engaged. Fine for the video makers, but photographers have lost their reach.

Now there's Substack. A platform for writers where you can build a subscriber base and if you don't like what the platform does, you can export your audience and take them elsewhere.

It seems great, but so was Twitter when it came out, and so was Facebook.

The one thing you need as a creative is an audience. All the social media sites royally screwed us. They let you build a following, but then you couldn't access the very audience you'd cultivated. It's like a singer selling out Wembley Stadium but when they get there they don't let them turn the microphones on.

The best way to build an audience online is to get an email address. Get that person's permission to send your writing/music/art direct to their inbox, because if you rely on social media then yes, you may end up with hundreds of thousands of followers. But it'll mean nothing, because they're completely unreachable.