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Your follower count is not related to your financial statement. It is not how you measure your success. Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy. I need to talk about this because I think the world of social media has us chasing this number of followers as if it's the answer to everything. Just like people talk about viral videos and they just wanna go viral.
Helen:Like, what do you think is gonna happen when you go viral? And I've done a podcast about this and I will link that below. But the part that no one is saying out loud, and I'm happy to say it out loud and I want to shout it from the rooftops, is that your followers are not seeing your videos. So even though it is wonderful, and I am grateful all the time that 1,200,000 people hit the follow button, that's great because it makes my page look good. It gives me credibility that I had something of value to say that people chose to follow me.
Helen:But that does not directly relate to any type of sales, any type of success that I, financial success. It's just a, it's literally just like a resume point. Like, yay, have 1,200,000 followers. I don't mean to put it down because I do understand that there is value there. And that's why I do get booked on social media speaking engagements and I get booked for workshops.
Helen:And now I was able to translate that into a teaching platform. But that has nothing to do with the number of followers. That has to do with certain ones of them who followed me for a reason and who continue to see my videos. And if I'm going to be honest, maybe that's a thousand people. For real.
Helen:And if I'm gonna go a little further, I'm I made the decision to do an to do an email list. And so now my email list has over 20,000 subscribers. That's still not a lot in the grand scheme of 1,200,000. But 20,000 subscribers on an email list are people then then chose to follow-up and hear from me more more consistently. So that's my audience.
Helen:That's what I think. I mean, the people that I am able to reach myself directly every week, twice a week, those are my people. Not the 1,200,000 number that's on my social media page. I just, I don't, I have to say it again and again because I have so many times people wanting to reach a follower count or when I hit this number of followers, like something magical is gonna happen. And granted, the platforms do make it look that way.
Helen:When you get to 10,000 followers on TikTok, you're able you're eligible for the Creator Fund. And I will tell you, some people make decent money with the Creator Fund. And there was a video I saw recently. Oh my gosh. This is crazy.
Helen:Somebody wrote in the comments of a video that she from the Creator Fund, she had a video with a 100,000 views, and she made a 100 and something dollars from a video with a 100,000 views. A 100 and something dollars in the Creator Fund. Creator Fund. I have a video with 1,700,000 views. And do you know how much money I made from that video?
Helen:This is the truth. $57. So it doesn't add up. Like, I I I just I don't even want to get down about it because I'm like, how did that person have a 100,000 views and make that much money when if you should do the math, I should have made 100 times one, you know, times 17. I think that's the math.
Helen:But whatever it is, I should have made way more money on that video. But my metric, the way that the algorithm works and the way it calculated it, I got $50. No joke. So it just doesn't do what people think. It doesn't translate directly to dollars.
Helen:And I I feel frustrated about this episode a little bit because I I want to I don't wanna be a downer. I wanna be a realist, and I wanna explain the algorithm more so because I think brands and viewers don't understand that they think you have this big following. You're gonna reach this massive audience all the time. And I have a situation even recently where one of my former neighbors contacted me because there's a nonprofit she's working with, and would I be willing to just, you know, make a video about it? And I'm like, you know, I can make a video about it, but if you think 1,200,000 people are gonna see it, they're not.
Helen:You might it might get to a few thousand, maybe. And I'd have to be really creative about the video on how I present it for it to even do that well because it's not related to why people are following me. They're not following me to hear about PSAs of families that started foundations because they lost their child. That's horrific. And the algorithm should push that out.
Helen:But that's not unfortunately how it works. So even though it looks like I can reach this massive audience, I'm being so for real right now when I say that is just not how it works. So if you're chasing that number because you think you're gonna reach that many people, and it's going to make a difference in your TikTok sales on your shop or your private coaching business or whatever, it's not. The more important number is the people who are on the videos making the comments, who the people who you are reaching that maybe joined your email list. The email list is super important if you haven't done it.
Helen:And I've talked about it so many times. That's the part that you have to realize. When you're growing an audience, you're not automatically owning that audience, which is brings me back again to why you should have an email list. At least then you know your core people who want to see your content. Maybe they're gonna take that step and join your email list.
Helen:But even over the years, the 1,200,000 people that have chose to chosen to follow me, they're not on my email list, all of them, so they don't even know. Some of them half I would say a million of them probably forgot about me already. They don't even remember that they followed me. Isn't that crazy? It's the truth.
Helen:I'm happy they chose to hit the follow button because it makes my optics look good. I have this big following. I ju I want to make sure that people realize it because when you're search when you're working towards gaining followers, you just have to know the reality that the followers aren't necessarily, necessarily the answer to your success, but it's how you keep in touch with them and how you stay top of mind with them and how you have a direct connection to them. Because the platform owns your audience. You don't own your audience.
Helen:Ay yay yay. It's just your followers are a potential reach if video happens to hit them that day. It's not a paycheck. Anyway, money comes from people who actually will buy something from you, trust you, hire you to do something, trust your recommendations on products that you're selling. It all comes from trust and building that trust and keeping in touch with the core group of followers who are seeing your videos.
Helen:And sometimes I get comments like, wow, I haven't seen your videos in so long. And I'm like, welcome back. Take a scroll. You'll see what you've been missing. And that's fun.
Helen:But when you even if you have a thousand followers and you think about how many people have taken a minute to either purchase something from you, Even of the thousand, maybe there's a handful of 20 who are in your comments all the time and who are loyal. And those are the people that you can reach, that you can sell to, that you can convert if sales is what you're looking for. And if it's just purely you want followers because you want it to look good, like you could say, Okay, that sounds great, Helen, but I want followers so my page looks good like yours. Okay? Yes, that's great.
Helen:But again, the people that are going to choose to follow, they're going to need a really good reason to follow now. The reasons of you just, you know, you're presenting TikTok shop videos to them every day and you're showing them new products, I mean, that's not necessarily a reason someone's gonna hit the follow button. There has to be something more than that because they can just scroll over and see anyone selling the products. They don't need to see you doing it. There has to be something you are specifically offering to them that someone else is not, someone else in their world is not.
Helen:Maybe it's the way you present it. Maybe it's something that's relatable about you because, you know, fellow autism mom, so I want to buy from that person. Or somebody who's entrepreneur starting a business and oh, I feel her energy. I want to help her out. There has to be a connection beyond there has to be a value connection beyond just you're trying to sell them something.
Helen:And that's that alone is not going to get them to buy it unless it's a really good ad. And even then, you could put out 20 really good ads, maybe a 100 really good ads, and one might hit the algorithm. So you're so at the mercy of the algorithm, and and it's absolutely frustrating. So, again, I it comes back to ownership. I think if I would have depended on 1,200,000 followers to start my studio program, I don't think I would have had much success at all.
Helen:I think it came from the success of I think that actually didn't come from social media. It came from my email list. Because when I launched my program, my email lists were the people who came into it first. Those were my more loyal people who were seeing my content week after week because they were getting my newsletter. So I think we don't, hold the value of a newsletter.
Helen:If you're trying to get a follower count, get a follower to your newsletter. That's actually good advice. You almost want to worry more about getting people into a newsletter than getting people onto your social media. If you have a focus, focus on that. Yikes.
Helen:Get yourself a lead magnet that they need to download in your profile so that they hear from you every week in a newsletter or twice a month or something. Because your ownership of that audience and being able to reach them week after week with a really engaging subject line so that they open the email is way, way, way better than depending on an algorithm to feed somebody a video, and you're trying to be creative and make good videos. And, this is where I'll say making good videos is pretty key because you're in a sea of people making videos now. And you've gotta figure out how to stand out. And it's not from doing the formula like I talked about last week.
Helen:It's not from this hook line and that middle and that call to action. Nope. It's from finding within what your voice is, what you are unique for, and how you can reach people through your real thoughts and your real experiences. You've got to do it that way. You've got to think about it that way.
Helen:And you can't you just can't think that followers are the answer. I try I try really hard to say it, but it's it's so hard because it people could think, yes. Easy for you to say because you have so many followers. And I acknowledge that because it is a great I lead with it in meetings. It's a great resume builder.
Helen:I lead with that. I have 1,200,000 followers on TikTok. It's great. People 1,200,000 people chose to hit the follow button. But that's it.
Helen:Like, and I think that me making this episode is probably pulling back the curtain potentially too much. It's an uphill battle for the creator because they're constantly chasing that, like, audience. Can I can I hit them with this? Will they be engaged with me? People are sending me videos all the time.
Helen:Please engage with this. It's a promo. Okay. Make a good video and somebody will watch it. I don't know.
Helen:So it's you have to really know that even though you're trying to build a following so you have a page that looks impressive because you've had that many people choose to follow you, getting people to do it is a lot easier if your videos are good and if you're offering value to your audience that's different from what someone else is doing. This is the other part. I'm gonna leave you with this, but so many of my one to ones, over the past couple of months have been where the person is telling me about other accounts that are doing the same thing as as them. And here's what this person's doing and that person. And I wanna, you know, I guess I shouldn't bother because that person has such a big following and they're talking about the same thing.
Helen:And I'm like, what? Don't even look at those people. Like you don't need to try and compare compete with those people. You're going to find you're going to resonate with a whole different group. So don't get caught up in that either.
Helen:There's a lot of that going on right now. A lot. I've had some interesting meetings recently where that has come up again and again. Like, I don't know. I just am surprised because I think because I always have my leader mentality on, like I don't want to know what someone else is doing because I don't want to accidentally even copy them.
Helen:I don't I'd rather be in the front moving through and let them copying me. Let them copy me. Like, I've said this in one of my, group sessions. If you're always if you're a leader mindset, you'll never be chasing. There'll always be somebody trying to copy you potentially.
Helen:But you're always gonna be ahead of them because you're more creative and you're not the follower. You're not thinking about, oh, I have to do it like that person because that person does those kind of videos and that's in my same niche. So what? There are so many growth gurus promising you followers, followers, followers. If you do this, you'll get more followers and I can help you grow your account.
Helen:I've even said that too. I've, you know, I would love to help you grow your account because I know people want that. So I've used that language. I admit it. But I also am not teaching people to do this formula and that formula to grow your account.
Helen:I'm going to teach you how to be you so that you can find your people, your community, the people you're meant to find. It is so different if you have that kind of a lens or a hat on. If you think, I wanna get with someone that's gonna help me make content so I'm my most real success I mean, my most real on camera self that I'm talking about the things that I want to impart, and I'm gonna find my tribe that way. It's it's just a different mindset than do this to get followers. Do that to get followers.
Helen:Use this template. It's gonna get more views. Use that. And all those things are fine. And I'll recommend some of them.
Helen:Do a trend. You'll get more views. I say that because then maybe you'll get people to your page to look at your other videos where you're yourself and where you're sharing more about who you really are. Because the trends get people in. They, like, lead a horse to water kind of thing.
Helen:But your other videos will make them drink. Get it? I hope so. I don't want to be a downer about followers, but I just know the reality. And especially when people ask me if I'll post about something because they think that a million people are going to see it.
Helen:And I just I hate to disappoint. So I have to be real. That's it for today. Thanks for sticking around even though it wasn't like, you know, jumping up and down and clapping my hands episode. If you want to have some fun though, check out the Mothership Creator Retreat because we're gonna make some content in the city.
Helen:Gonna teach everybody with hands on lessons. It's going to be so much fun. If you don't know about it, I'll put the link in the show notes and I think you should just tap on it and see what the two options are. Maybe you'll join us. I'm really looking forward to it.
Helen:I'm going to bring all of my energy and all of the learning and my content skills and everyone's going to leave with content in hand and a consistent plan on how to build their content moving forward. Yay. Let's do it. I'll see you there.