Occasionally I run into artists who ask me how they can improve their social media presence. The conversations generally center on their following being too low as they poke and prod my brain for ways to increase their reach.
And while it is important to have as many eyes and ears as possible on your art, Creatives and business folks alike would do well to internalize the idea that impact can be reflected by online metrics, however, those metrics don’t necessarily INFER impact The relationship is not one to one.
Numbers don’t lie. That is, they don’t lie until you realize that they do. I’ve personally seen viral acts with millions of views on YouTube perform to empty rooms where the only members of the audience were staff members and personal friends of the promoter. The promoter put their faith in the numbers and took a loss on the money side — the artists performance online didn’t match their impact (or lack thereof) in real life and when it came time to sell hard tickets, which is a much more concrete measure of success, they couldn’t pass that test.
We’d do well to keep in mind that social media stats get juked in ways that casual social media users (and even experts) don’t even think about. Vanity metrics like views, and even likes to an extent, aren’t a true measure of how well you’re connecting with your audience and as such should be taken with a grain of salt. They aren’t true measures of impact.
“But wait, my last IG post has 5,000 views?”
Fantastic. How many were real views? Did you consider that someone stopped scrolling their feed for 3 seconds and they just happened to stop on your video? And more importantly, did the person convert in any way (merch sales, streams, etc.)? In many cases, the answer is a variation of no. Which is not okay, but don’t trip because that means that we can improve.
So, let’s consider the example of an Instagram influencer, who in 2019 had over a million followers. Last year, they decided to monetize their audience by launching her own t-shirt line. It failed to even reach 20 sales.
Now you might be asking yourself how does an influencer with 1.2 million followers fail to sell 20 t-shirts, but it’s because they were playing a numbers game.
For all we know, they might be part of an engagement pod or using other Instagram hacks that allow for quickly scaling an audience. But when it came time for that same audience that they amassed to support them the way that it truly matters to an entrepreneur, monetarily, the influencer was not able to translate their massive followers into a tangible impact.
Somewhere out there, there’s another IG influencer with 1,000,000 followers who only sold 20 shirts. Conversely, there’s someone out there right now who’s selling a master class with only 2500 followers, but they made six figures in sales. Why? There could a number of factors at play, but I’d venture to say the person with the smaller following is making a stronger impact and thus providing more value to the end consumer. And when it came time for fans to support with their wallets they showed up because they knew they were going to get the bang for their buck.
With that said, If you’re going to focus solely on numbers, by all means, it’s your right to do so and I’m not gonna knock you for it. But if you’re using social media metrics as the most important measure of your success you’re missing out on creating impact which I’d argue is the true measure of success.
Over time you’ll notice that your numbers increase with consistently engaging and providing valuable content to your audience, so don’t focus on increasing your numbers just for vanity’s sake. Make a meaningful change in the lives of the people you hope to serve my guy. It’s a harder path to take, but it’s the best one you’ve got.
Think about it.
Snobhop
